Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Israel attacks Gaza counting on West support: Activist.

A Gaza-based human rights activist tells Press TV that Israel has always initiated deadly attacks on the Tel Aviv-besieged coastal territory counting on the support of the West.

The Israeli warplanes have carried out five air strikes on the Gaza Strip in the latest wave of attacks on the enclave. The airstrikes targeted different areas of Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday.

On Monday, Israeli officials said they were mulling over various options to punish the Gazans and noted that they had not ruled out the possibility of launching a new war on the enclave. In December 2008, the Israeli regime waged a 22-day-long war against the territory, killing over 1,400 civilians, including 300 children.

The territory has also been under an Israeli blockade for the past five years

Press TV has talked in its News Analysis program with Adie Mormech, human rights activist, to shed more light on Israel’s acts of aggression against Gaza. He is joined by two additional guests: Kenneth O’Keefe, peace activist and former US marine, from London and Daniel Pipes, historian and political commentator, form Florida.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: You are in Gaza; give us a sense of humanitarian situation there right now as we are hearing Israel is stepping up its attacks on the Strip and of course threatening to wage another war on the besieged territory.

Mormech: Well, here is a lot of tension around and there is a lot of concern because what just happened here was virtually a massacre.

There was an attack blatantly targeted against civilians. We were actually visiting the families yesterday, we went to the hospitals, visited the doctors these are all civilians, there were four civilians that were killed; two while they were playing football, 16 and 17-year-old Mohammed Harara, Ahmed Harara and then there was a gathering here, this was in Shaja’iya in eastern Gaza and during the gathering they then bombed the people that were gathering, who were grieving the two children that have been killed, Ahmed al-dardasawi [18 years-old] and Matar Abu al-Ata [19 years-old] were killed.

Then altogether in that situation it sounded like a scene from the attacks on Gaza before they killed 332 children in three weeks and 1400 people and there were 38 injured altogether in the attack on Shaja’iya, all civilians.

This was a targeted attack against civilians, they decided this and of course the initial attack was on Thursday against a 13-year-old boy Ahmed Abu Daqa and this was the first attack, the first casualty, and he was a 13-year-old boy living by the border.

These are crimes, these are already crimes and they are already talking about an escalation of more mass crimes in the Gaza Strip and this is where the people around the world have to ask that is it going to be 1400 killed next time? Is it going to be 2000? Is it going to be 3000? It is going to be 500 kids? Which kids are going to be died tomorrow because of these attacks?

This is really the major concern now in Gaza Strip and it is a major concern for the world.

Press TV: We are hearing the remarks being said there by our guests; as someone who has been in Gaza yourself you are seeing things on the ground there, what, basically, led to this situation of Israel saying that it is going to go ahead with a full-scale war if it has to.

Who should be termed as responsible for this or what were the conditions that led to this situation?

Mormech: The conditions are quite clear and there was an attack by Israel, that was an initial attack and again, they killed Ahmed Abu Daqa. The response of course is these homemade rockets that are fired, that actually have only killed about 30 people in ten years.

Now...; I do not endorse killing anybody and no one should be murdered but 30 people compared to the thousands and thousands of Palestinians that have been killed. In fact there has been more killed in one bomb against the Samouni family and one family in the Operation Cast Lead, than all of the victims in over the ten years, from these rockets from the Palestinian side.

Once again if you look at the attacks in June, it was initiated by Israel. There was nobody killed on the Israeli side, [but] 20 Palestinians [were] killed and about 70 injured.

In March, initiated by Israel, the first attack that was again 20 Palestinians killed and then nobody killed on the Israeli side but again 70 Palestinians injured.

There have been 38 and 52 total Palestinian civilians injured during these latest attacks. The only attack that hit anybody on the Israeli side was on an Israeli Jeep and of course under international law, even, the Palestinians have the right to defend against a military occupation and Palestine is still under military occupation.

It is the longest running military occupation in the modern history and so this is just fictitious nonsense and only has it happened again when Israel has initiated the attacks, Israel does probably want a war because they are always wanting to attack these neighbors around them, they have invaded [various] countries throughout their creation and they are also just about to embark on an election campaign and of course if they are at war then it helps enormously to gain people’s support for that especially with the propaganda that Daniel Pipes [other guest of the program] is pumping out ...

Press TV: We know that when the Gaza war happened back in 2008 and 2009, various probes were made and then even from the Israeli side, we saw an international probe concluding that civilians were targeted, that excessive force was used, but a lot of critics of a possible war right now are saying that, what they call the inaction of the international community when it came to the Gaza war is provoking similar action now again by Israel.

What can you tell us about the type of action that you expect from the international community?

Mormech: Well, certainly what Kenneth [O’Keefe, other guest of the show] just said is the truth of the matter.

The reason why Israel may be able to attack with more immunity is because of the cowardice and the complete and utter co-opting of all Western governments for the Israeli agenda of colonizing the Palestinian land and the settlements have increased to 600,000.

Now they are all illegal by international law, everybody just sat and watched; the European Union has continued to fund Israel and America funds three billion to six billion dollars a year for this criminal enterprise to take place.

So I do not expect so much from the international governments but I do hope things have changed somewhat. Some Israelis are saying that soon Israel would be isolated because people on the ground are actually starting to wake up and starting to act and civil society is beginning to say, We cannot have anything to do with a country that is being perpetuated by an apartheid system against Palestinians and has came about through ethnic cleansing.

So I do really hope that there will be a response. The United Nations had the report, the [Richard] Goldstone report, which did say that Israel had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes. However this was not acted upon and this is why Israel will be about to commit more murder over the next few days and I wonder which civilians now are sleeping in their beds or are playing football or are having dinner now who will tomorrow or the next day be losing their lives.

These are crimes initiated by Israel and I am disgusted that Daniel Pipes [other guest of the program] has not even had any sense to give any time to the initial victims, the civilian victims that began every single cycle of violence that has happened, not to mention the Cast Lead attacks.

CNN even reported that Israel was the first to break the ceasefire that had been going on for three months. They started the round of violence that began the attacks that have always ended up with mass murder on the Palestinian side.